


Scales and Scars

by Tiazza3



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: American Sign Language, Gen, This deathclaw used to be a human. Sort of. Their brain was in a human body, This is my first fic can I hear a wahoo!, bc deathclaws have big muzzles and no lips so like....not much good for human speech, ive taken some ASL classes but if anything is off pls let me know, mute character, sorry if the tagging or formatting is absolutely garbage I’m doing this on my phone and am a dumbass
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:01:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26249875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tiazza3/pseuds/Tiazza3
Summary: Hey so!! First fic ever!! I hope you like reading about one very good lad and one very confused deathclaw, plus an assortment of other characters. This fic may well go up in rating as it goes on, and I’ll probably be posting separate fics that are more of this but not in chronological order that are very nsfw. Because I have no patience and have already gotten ahead of myself and wrote smut.
Kudos: 12





	1. Chapter 1

It really was fascinating, how the stomach pain had managed to transfer over despite the fact that they had an entirely new _body._

Cas grunted and rolled over onto their side, cupping their stomach with one hand. Paw. Whatever. It didn’t really help, but it was what they had done when they had a human body and human hands, so.

It hadn’t helped much back then, either.

They could feel the anxiety rising like a tide of sewage in the back of their mind, and they huffed, annoyed. Really? Why now?They were doing  _good_ ,  dammit, there was nothing to be upset about. 

Suddenly there was the sound of a rusty metal door opening, and Cas pricked up their ears (metaphorically, since they didn’t actually have ears anymore), and raised their head, snuffling at the air. The distinct smell of chems, metal, and blood wafted down to them, and they couldn’t help but let out a pleased rumble.

“Heya, Cas”, called out a rasping voice from the stairwell as Hancock, Mayor of Goodneighbor, strolled down the steps. 

Cas rolled into a sitting position, their muzzle twisting into the closest approximation of a smile they could make, and waved hello to the man. 

“How’re you doing down here? There were some raiders a couple blocks over, hope they weren’t giving you any trouble.”

Cas snorted, rolling their eyes.  _“Give me trouble? Funny_ ,”  they signed back. 

It took Hancock a minute to parse the signing, his black eyes squinting in concentration, but he chuckled when he finally got it. “Yeah, I know. Still, must be fuckin’ annoying to get shot at by those pricks, even if the bullets’ll barely get through your skin.” 

“ _Never saw them. Or heard. You’re here early, what’s up?”_ Cas cursed the fact that they weren’t actually fluid in American Sign Language daily, but it was especially frustrating when the sign was on the tip of their tongue, so much quicker than fingerspelling it. They’d have to sign it only once or twice before Hancock picked it up, but for the life of them they couldn’t remember the sign for ‘early’. 

Hancock looked a little...something, once he’d understood their question. Embarrassed? Guilty? Cas didn’t much like it, and their already nervous mood skyrocketed right into nausea-inducing territory.

“Well, see, everyone back at Goodneighbor was getting a little worried that I was slippin’ out every few days to go do something I didn’t want to talk about, and by _everyone_ I mean Fahrenheit. So she’s tagging along. She’s upstairs, I figured you might like a little warning before she comes down.” 

Cas practically felt their heart palpitate in their chest, stomach roiling. 

“ _What?? Hancock what the fuck?? She’s going to fucking shoot me! And then everyone in Goodneighbor is going to come here with pitchforks and torches like I’m fucking Frankenstein’s monster!”_

Hancock shook his head, stepping closer. “You don’t have to worry, Cas. I promise. Fahrenheit is completely loyal to me, she won’t hurt you, cause I’ll tell her not to. And besides, anyone who talks to you for two minutes can see you wouldn’t so much as squash a bloatfly unless it went for you first.” 

They suppressed a whimper, trying to slow their racing, doom-filled thoughts. Hancock had never lied to them before, but Cas had seen the reactions of other people of the Commonwealth had  to them. It was a lot of screaming and running, or shooting. On one memorable occasion, someone had thrown a grenade directly into their face. That had  _hurt_.

“ _Ok,”_ they signed hesitantly.  “ _Really, please don’t let her shoot me.”_

“I won’t, friend. Don’t worry.” Hancock smiled at them before heading back upstairs.

Luckily Cas didn’t have much time to work themself up into a frenzy of anxiety, because Hancock reappeared a minute later, a tough looking, red-haired woman at his side.

The second she saw Cas, the woman had pulled a huge gun off her back and had it aimed directly at their head. Cas yelped and shrank down to the floor, curling their claws back into their palms and trying to look as small and pitiful as possible. 

“Hey!” Hancock barked, shoving the barrel of the weapon down to point at the concrete floor, “what did I say about the gun?!” 

“Hancock what the  _fuck_!  I thought you were fucking high when you said you’d found a  deathclaw  hiding out in the basement of the Museum! Let me fucking shoot it already!” The redhead snarled and tried to jerk the gun away from Hancock, and previously Cas might’ve found the sight of an enraged woman with a gun and an undercut to be earth-shatteringly hot, but now it was just scary. 

Cas couldn’t hold back the high, thin whine that escaped their muzzle at that moment, so distressed that they were actually beginning to tear up (and how did that even work? Lizards didn’t cry when they were upset.) 

Fahrenheit twitched at the small, sad sound, and looked at the monster then, really looked, and she had to begrudgingly admit to herself that no, this thing did not look like a typical deathclaw, and it sure didn’t act like it.

It was sat sprawled on its haunches, dark greenish black scales glimmering in the low light. It had a longer, less squashed muzzle than any other deathclaw she’d seen (not that she’d seen that many, thank fuck), and it’s horns shot straight forward from it’s head like the blades on bayonets. It was also significantly smaller than a deathclaw was supposed to be, maybe three quarters the size of a regular one. Most importantly, it was just sitting there, looking as absolutely distraught as a giant mutated lizard can look. Literal tears were pooling in the corners of it’s fist-sized green eyes. 

Fahrenheit took a deep breath in, letting her gaze flick to Hancock for the barest second before she locked her eyes back on the deathclaw. 

“Okay. You told me it was intelligent. And that it doesn’t want to murder everything in sight. Fucking prove it.” 

She almost tried to raise her gun to shoot it on instinct when it slowly rose to it’s feet, but she bit her lip hard, and quashed that desire back. For now. 

It turned to the wall opposite of where she and Hancock were standing, and then it started...scratching at the wall? What the fuck? 

After a minute it turned back toward them and slowly shuffled to the side, head down and movements measured.

“Look at the wall, Fahr.” Hancock stage-whispered to her, and she almost rolled her eyes, but she looked at the wall. And nearly dropped her gun in surprise. 

On the wall, in shaky, rough handwriting, the deathclaw had written

** MY NAME IS CAS.  **

** PLEASE DO NOT SHOOT ME.  **

** I WANT TO BE FRIENDS.  **


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A look at Cas’s first non-negative interaction with a citizen of the Commonwealth. It starts as auspiciously as you’d expect, it being Fallout.

**4 Weeks Earlier**

Ohhhh fuck. This was not good, not good at all. The scary green giants had a little girl in a  _cage_.  Seriously? Who did that? 

Cas shifted from one huge, clawed foot to the other, not sure what to do. Before they had woken up in this monstrous body, they had been short and slight, not much of a threat to anything more dangerous than a grade-schooler. But now.....they looked down at their hands, fingers tipped with wicked, hooked claws, and ran their tongue over huge fangs. The giant green assholes were actually shorter than them by a foot or so, they had only realized how goddamn big they were when they had stomped by carrying the girl in the cage. 

Speaking of. They already knew what they had to do, they’d just needed a minute to convince themself that they had the courage to actually do it, and the green gits (nice one) were almost past the alley they had been stealthily watching them from. 

Cas leapt forward, immediately going for the one holding the poor kid in the cage. Sadly, being a half ton monster did not make their running footsteps any quieter, and the bastards were turning as they cold-cocked their target right in the jaw. 

Okay, that was dumb. They had _claws_ ,  dammit, punching was irrelevant. Fortunately, the pure muscle and force behind the punch made him stagger and drop the cage. 

There was a split second thatcould’ve been ripped from a bad comedy where the green guy and Cas glanced down at the cage, glanced back up at each other, and then both of them sprang for it at the exact same moment. 

Again, fortune blessed Cas and the kid, because while the green guys had warty, nasty skin on their heads, Cas had sharp horns, both of them pointed straight forwards, like two deadly spears. So instead of merely bumping heads with big green McShithead, there was a horrible ripping noise and a surprisingly high-pitched scream as a horn speared itself into a fleshy green cheek. Cas didn’t have time to process this, just grabbing the cage with the girl in it and turning to run away. There was a bit of unexpected drag on one of their horns, and a piece of green meat was abruptly ripped away and flung into the air. 

Cas held the cage as close to their body as they could, galloping awkwardly on their hind legs as what had to be bullets pinged off their scales. They really hoped they weren’t scrambling the kid’s brains with their stupid running, but lizard hips were apparently not meant tobe used for movement without front leg (arm?) support as well. 

Eventually the sharp crack of bullets and angry screaming faded into the distance, and Cas slowed down, peering anxiously into the cage they still held in their claws. The little girl stared back, tears streaming down her face, a little bruised but not seeming  too worse for wear. 

They opened their mouth to say something, not even sure what, but all that came out was a hoarse grunting sound. 

Fuck. Of course. The very thing that had enabled them to save the kid stopped them from talking to her. She must be even more terrified than before. 

Looking up, Cas realized with a surge of relief that they had come to a stop near where they had been hiding out since stumbling across this city. They checked nervously over their scaly shoulder one last time and picked the cage back up, moving at a gentler pace towards the Boston Museum of Science. 

They slipped down into a belowground parking structure, claws splashing in the thin film of greasy water that looked over the concrete floor. At the very back of the place,a wall had had a huge hole blown in it, but the hole was mostly covered by the corpse of a rusting car. That was where Cas had been staying for a few weeks, and the only place they knew was relatively safe. 

They pulled the car back as quietly as the could, slipped inside, and pulled it back into place. It was about the crudest door setup imaginable, but if some asshole wanted in here so bad they shoved a  _ car  _ out of the way, Cas figured they’d earned the right to rifle through their meager collection of stuff. 

They set the girl down, staring at the cage. How to open it? It must have been handmade, with messy soldering marks obvious at the joints, but there wasn’t a convenient little door to rip off, either. It looked almost like...almost like she had been dumped into a cage that was  _ never designed to open again _ . They felt nausea stir in their guts at that thought. Well, whatever, they’d just have to get a little creative. 

Stepping forward and ignoring the pitiful squeak from the poor kid, they hooked one talon from each huge foot through the grate on the bottom (ouch, sitting on that had to hurt like hell), bent down to rest their elbow firmly against the top grate, and grabbed the right side of the cage with their remaining hand. They carefully worked their claws through the bars, and started to pull. It didn’t take long for the metal to start groaning and deforming, and with a loud  _pop!_ the side pulled away from the rest, and the girl immediately scrambled out and into the nearest corner, shivering like she had hypothermia and staring up at Cas with wide, fearful brown eyes.

Well. Now they had a dirty, slightly injured, traumatized child in their ‘home’ and no goddam idea where she came from.

What the  _ fuck  _ were they supposed to do now? 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Second chapter! Hope this is as good as (or better) than the first and you love Cas as much as I do :) please feel free to comment with any sort of feedback or queries.


	3. Chapter 3

Leah stared at the deathclaw fearfully, waiting for it to pounce. Now that it had gotten her out of the cage that protected her from its huge, toothy jaws, she was done for. She wanted to close her eyes, but found herself frozen in place, unable to even twitch a muscle. 

She wished she had never ventured out of Goodneighbor with all her heart. She had been so  _stupid_ ,  what had she been thinking? Even if Goodneighbor kind of sucked and the ghouls looked scary, there were no super mutants or deathclaws eager to snack on people. 

_ _ _Stupid,_ she berated herself fiercely. And now she was going to die, and Mom wouldn’t even know what happened. There wouldn’t even be bones left of her, the monster would swallow her whole and-

She squeaked in surprise as a heavy blanket landed on her. The deathclaw had moved surprisingly quietly for a thing that large. Or she was just too terrified to notice what was going on around her. Neither of those were comforting thoughts. But why had it tossed a blanket over her? Surely it couldn’t mean to eat her  _ and  _ the blanket together. 

Leah flinched as it moved, but it only flopped down onto its stomach, it’s upper half resting on another blanket. It regarded her with a strange sort of....expression..? in its eyes. No, that was silly, deathclaws didn’t have things like  _expressions_ ,  they were beasts, just like bloatflies or yao guai. 

...But beasts didn’t give people blankets, or get them out of cages and just  sit  there. Beasts didn’t have intelligent, aware eyes that looked back at you like a person’s. 

Leah took a deep breath, trying to gather every scrap of not-inconsiderable courage she had. If this got her killed, oh well. Not like she was going to be able to get away anyway. 

“Are you going to eat me?” She asked, glaring fiercely at the deathclaw. Actually she sort of shouted at it, which wasn’t her intent and probably was a really bad idea, but the words were out of her mouth at high volume already. She mentally indulged in several choice swear words she had overheard the Goodneighbor watch members use. 

The deathclaw blinked, sprout-green eyes going wide for a moment. Then it shook its massive horned head from side to side. It kind of reminded Leah of a brahmin trying to swat away bugs, and she let out a hysterical giggle. 

It snorted softly, and she realized it was trying to laugh, too. Were all deathclaws this smart? Surely not. 

“Do you think you could maybe...take me home then?” she asked, voice still shaking a bit. 

The deathclaw nodded. Actually for real nodded. Leah again said several swears in her head, but this time they were amazed instead of terrified swears.

“Do you know where Goodneighbor is?” 

The huge head shook in a sheepish negative this time, and Leah smiled at it. She was getting the impression that this massive killing machine had a personality more akin to a nervous radstag doe than anything else.

“Well that’s ok, ‘cause I know where it is. Sort of. It’ll be easier to see if you carry me.”

And that was how Leah got home. The Deathclaw put her up on it’s huge shoulders, slowly loping through the dark and ruined city as she whispered directions in its ear. Once they ran into a group of raiders, but at a menacing growl from her new friend, they scattered as quickly as they had appeared. 

Once the neon lights of Goodneighbor came into view, Leah scrambled off the deathclaw’s back and darted inside, giving a small wave and a smile. 

***

The next day, Hancock listened to Leah’s excited retelling of what had happened to her while she was lost, frowning. It sounded like bullshit....but if there was a deathclaw running around so close, it needed to be dealt with. Maybe it was time to take a little break from mayoral duties. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow ok! No excuse for the delay between chapters here. All I can say is my brain is garbage and America sucks even more than usual rn.
> 
> So, as penance, do y’all want a separate work that’s plain ol smut between Hancock and Cas? I already have it written but if no one wants to be ~spoiled~ for their first time I don’t have to post it! 
> 
> I hope everyone who reads this is doing okay and staying safe.

**Author's Note:**

> Constructive criticism is welcome! Please comment if you’d like, I’m very excited about starting to write fanfic and would love feedback.


End file.
